Time is scarce.  We cannot read everything, so we make choices, in part
   based on the expected quality of various articles.  We have a rough internal
   ranking  of journals, that we revise based on our own past experiences
   reading articles in various journals, and maybe also based on the past
   experiences of other scholars whose judgment has proven sound.  And if we
   don't have much experience with journals, and our trusted colleagues don't,
   we may put some weight on published rankings of journals.
   And when we do this, we are being rational, not "scandalous" or "corrupt."
   Maybe there's a better way to allocate scarce time.  But what would be
   helpful would be less moral outrage, and more elaboration of a better way.

   Arthur M. Diamond, Jr.